Happy Fall! And welcome to our Fall CSA. An edible treasure chest, your CSA box has all the colors for rainbow eating this week. A few tips on the contents:

Celery – may look a bit different than you are used to, but a bit of this superb aromatic goes a long way. Try some in your favorite soup recipe and prepare to feel like a million bucks.

Edamame – “I’ve never seen fresh!” Is the #1 comment we get at the farmers market for this healthy snack. To prepare, pop the pods off the stems (a great job to keep the kids busy!), wash well, and steam or boil for 10-15 minutes. Serve with a light sprinkling of salt. Edamame makes a great snack, because you are actively popping the beans out of their tough pods, it keeps your hands and mouth very busy! Also, loaded with protein.

Radicchio – This variety (‘Perseo’) looks a bit different than your classic radicchio, but it is a fabulous bitter green that hold up well in a salad with sweet and pungent pals. Try some with bleu cheese and some sliced Asian pear.

Sweet vs. Hot Peppers – Your sweet peppers this week are banana and ‘Carmen’ a long red variety. Your hot peppers are jalapeno, habanero, scotch bonnet, or ghost peppers. They are quarantined in a plastic produce bag, so you cannot mistake them for sweet peppers. Also, most of the hot peppers are smaller than your thumb, while the sweet peppers are much larger. If hot peppers are not your thing, we will not be offended if you pass them along to your spice loving friend at work — they do not show up in CSA boxes often 🙂

Asian pears – are a delightful fall treat that are reminiscent of both pears and apples. Crunchy and sweet, they store well in your crisper drawer.

We hope you enjoy your share this week! Feel free to contact us with any questions, we also love seeing pictures of what you’re up to in the kitchen!

Don’t forget about our Fall Plant Sale! Right now, all plants at the garden center are Buy One, Get One free! Fall is a wonderful time for planting!!!

Ahhhh, it’s here…the 22nd, and final, week of the summer CSA. You made it!

Leafy greens are becoming more abundant with the cooler weather. We love this time of year when summer and fall crops overlap. So much room for culinary creativity, and so many good things on the way. Kale, romaine, buttercrunch, rainbow carrots, radishes, spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, turnips, rutabaga, to name a few. Mouth watering? Good. This is a shameless plug for the Fall and Winter CSA seasons! Sign up here. Your support of our small family farm is good for the land, good for your health, and good for the local economy. Now that is a winning combination — just like caramelized garlic, puff pastry, and goat cheese (though the former is slightly better for your health)! Without much ado, here are some yummy recipes to inspire you this week.

Wednesday is here again! We have a beautiful share of veggies this week, you will all succeed in eating your rainbow. Next week is the 22nd, and final, week of the summer CSA season, so if you haven’t yet signed up for Fall and Winter — now is the time! You can purchase a share through our website, over the phone, in person at the garden center, or any one of our farmers markets.

We are working through our final crop of organic sweet corn, as delicious as it is, we can pretty much guarantee each ear will have a little worm inside! We hope you can forgive them for loving sweet corn as much as we do, send them on their way, and enjoy your precious prize! This may be sweet corn’s final appearance in your box for the season.

We can only grow celery a couple of times a year, and you will notice it looks quite different from what you may find in the grocery store. The stalks are much more slender, and if you find you do not enjoy eating our celery raw, it is delicious sauteed with other veggies, or in soup!

Perseo radicchio is another item you may find looks unfamiliar. It is similar in flavor to its more purple counterpart, so it plays well with some sweetness in a salad (perhaps roasted beets, asian pears, some honey and goat cheese?!) It can also be steamed with a bit of vinegar if the bitterness is unpalatable to you. We hope you enjoy it.

We were busy in the garden all day planting. Our winter carrots are up, fall arugula and spicy salad mix are looking good, and the watermelon radishes are about 1 centimeter tall! Savor the final weeks of summer veggies, but fall and winter are looking like they will be pretty delicious, too — just the way we like it.

Beautiful conditions for harvesting radicchio! Summer sunset over the farm.